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Author: Digital Editor

The Paradox That Keeps Detainees from Their Counsel

Posted on by Digital Editor

The legitimacy of any criminal justice system is measured not by how it treats the innocent, but by how it protects the rights of those accused of crimes. A system that respects due process, upholds constitutional guarantees, and places the rule of law above institutional convenience earns public confidence.

When constitutional institutions disregard these principles, public trust erodes, and the system becomes vulnerable to abuse. Now the criminal justice system stands at such a crossroads.

Considerable legal reforms have been introduced over the years, yet putting them into practice still faces serious obstacles. Among the most persistent are corruption, abuse of power, arbitrary restrictions on rights, and the failure of institutions to hold themselves accountable. These are no longer isolated incidents. They have become the proverbial “elephant in the room” that many acknowledge privately, but few confront publicly.

One of the most fundamental principles of criminal justice is the presumption of innocence. Every person accused of a crime remains innocent until proven guilty by a competent court. This is not a legal technicality but the foundation of every democratic legal system. To give it real effect, suspects have a constitutional right to procedural safeguards, including the right to remain silent and the right to legal representation from the earliest stages of proceedings.

The Constitution protects these rights strongly. A suspect has the right to remain silent and should not be compelled to incriminate herself. Equally important is the right to consult and be represented by a lawyer of his choosing. They are meant to ensure fair investigations and protect suspects from coercion, intimidation, and unlawful pressure and are reinforced by Ethiopia’s international obligations.

The supreme law of the land provides that all international agreements the country has ratified form an integral part of it. It requires that the fundamental rights guaranteed under Chapter Three be interpreted in conformity with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenants on Human Rights, and other instruments Ethiopia has adopted. Neither is the right to legal counsel a statutory privilege to be granted or withheld at officials’ discretion. It is a constitutional and internationally recognised human right.

However, the reality for many defence lawyers and their clients tells a very different story. Lawyers for detained suspects are frequently denied access unless they first produce a written representation agreement signed by the suspect. The requirement may look harmless, but it is a serious obstacle to constitutional rights.

Unlike civil litigation, criminal representation has never been conditioned on a written contract between lawyer and client. The distinction is deliberate. In civil cases, parties voluntarily seek legal help over private rights, and a written engagement defines the scope of the work, fees, and responsibilities. Criminal proceedings are different. A person’s liberty, and sometimes life, could be at stake. The need for representation is immediate, and any delay may irreparably prejudice the suspect’s rights.

Criminal practice has long recognised this urgency. Lawyers may act at once on instructions from the suspect’s family or authorised representatives, or on the suspect’s own request. Requiring a formal written contract before granting access defeats the very purpose of the constitutional guarantee. The practical consequences expose its absurdity.

If a suspect is already detained and denied access to a lawyer until a written agreement is signed, how is that agreement to be executed?

The suspect cannot reach counsel, and counsel cannot meet the suspect because no agreement has been signed. The result is an impossible paradox, created by administrative practice rather than by law. This practice turns a constitutional right into a conditional privilege contingent on police approval, which is inconsistent with both the Constitution and accepted standards of due process.

The consequences reach well beyond inconvenience. The earliest hours of detention are often the most critical stage of an investigation. Suspects are questioned, statements are taken, and decisions that shape the entire prosecution are made. Without timely legal help, suspects become far more vulnerable to coercive interrogation, intimidation, involuntary confessions, and other abuse. Early access to counsel protects not only suspects but also the integrity of investigations, reducing the likelihood that evidence will be later contested or excluded due to procedural violations.

Respecting the right to counsel strengthens, rather than weakens, the administration of justice.

Many in the legal community have grown accustomed to these unlawful restrictions. Defence lawyers routinely meet resistance when they try to see detained clients. Some negotiate access through personal ties rather than legal entitlement; others face delays that compromise representation. More concerning should be the institutional silence around the practice.

Professional bodies tasked with safeguarding the independence of the legal profession have a duty to defend lawyers who are prevented from performing their constitutional role. Public institutions overseeing the administration of justice bear a corresponding duty to ensure agencies comply with the Constitution.

Yet meaningful intervention has been limited. Whether this inaction derives from unwillingness, lack of authority, inertia, or competing priorities, the consequence is the same. Unlawful practices continue unchecked while constitutional rights are gradually weakened.

The issue should not be seen as a contest between lawyers and the police. It concerns the integrity of the justice system itself. Police officers perform an essential function and face real difficulties in keeping the public safe. Effective law enforcement, however, cannot come at the expense of constitutional rights. The rule of law requires that all public authorities, including the police, operate within the limits set by the Constitution and other subordinate laws.

Respect for legal representation benefits everyone. It protects suspects against abuse, helps courts reach reliable decisions, strengthens public confidence, and reduces wrongful convictions.

Ethiopia has built an impressive constitutional framework that recognises fundamental rights and has embraced international human rights standards into domestic law. The problem is not the absence of principles but the gap between law and practice. Closing that gap requires institutional courage.

The Federal Police should issue clear directives granting lawyers prompt access to detained suspects without unlawful prerequisites such as written representation agreements. The Ministry of Justice should provide oversight and issue binding guidance where necessary. Bar associations should advocate more forcefully for lawyers doing their constitutional work. Courts, too, should remain vigilant against procedural violations that undermine fair-trial guarantees.

The strength of a criminal justice system is measured by its commitment to legality, not by the number of convictions it secures. Constitutional rights are tested most severely during investigations, when the temptation to compromise safeguards for efficiency is greatest. That is precisely why those safeguards exist. The continued denial of prompt access to counsel is more than an inconvenience. It is a direct threat to constitutional supremacy, the rule of law, and Ethiopia’s human rights commitments.

The elephant in the room has gone unaddressed for far too long. Ignoring it can only deepen public distrust and weaken confidence in the justice system. Confronting it candidly offers the opportunity to reaffirm the country’s commitment to constitutional governance, human dignity, and equal justice under the law.

Size, Not Customisation the Next AI Race

Posted on by Digital Editor

For decades, software developers chased a single ambition. They wanted to build one application that could serve millions of users. Artificial intelligence (AI) is now turning that logic on its head.

Instead of forcing users to adapt to the software, AI is adapting itself to individual users, organisations, and industries. The race in artificial intelligence is no longer about building the largest language model. It is about enabling the largest number of customised AI applications.

The first generation of generative AI brought powerful conversational assistants capable of answering almost any question. Millions of people now lean on AI to write reports, summarise documents, generate code, and support research. Yet the limits of general-purpose AI soon became clear. Every profession has its own language, as every organisation has its own procedures and every country its own regulations. A generic AI can assist everyone, but it cannot fully understand anyone.

That realisation has set off a global movement toward mass customisation. Technology companies have read the shift.

OpenAI lets users create specialised GPTs, while Google offers Gems through Gemini. These platforms allow individuals and organisations to build AI assistants with their own instructions, domain knowledge, workflows, and personalities, without advanced programming skills. The value of AI is shifting from the model itself to the ability to shape it for a specific purpose.

The development echoes the economic theory of mass customisation that management scholars introduced in the 1990s. AI is making that vision real, not for physical products but for intelligence itself. Intelligence is becoming configurable, with consequences that extend well beyond convenience.

Customised AI sharply cuts the cost of expertise. A university can build an AI tutor that knows its curriculum, and a hospital can deploy an assistant trained on clinical guidelines and administrative procedures. A customs authority can create an adviser fluent in tariff schedules, customs law, and inspection protocols. Law firms, banks, manufacturers, and farmers can all develop assistants fitted to their own working conditions. Each of these tasks was once the domain of scarce specialists, and a customised assistant puts that knowledge within closer reach.

For Ethiopia, the opportunity could be considerable. The country has adopted an ambitious digital transformation agenda, yet much of the available AI is trained primarily on global data and on foreign institutions. Customisation offers a practical answer by embedding local knowledge, regulations, languages, and institutional practices into AI systems.

Ethiopia also faces a strategic risk, as many of its institutions are becoming eager consumers of AI without becoming its producers. Employees use ChatGPT or Gemini on their own, but institutions rarely capture that experience to build organisational intelligence. The distinction is between a consumer who buys intelligence shaped by others and a producer who shapes intelligence around its own institutions.

The transition, therefore, requires more than technology; it demands organisational change. Universities should fold AI customisation into teaching, and institutions should encourage staff to build custom assistants. Government should promote affordable access to APIs, the connections that let software tap AI models, along with cloud infrastructure and local-language datasets, while setting governance rules for privacy, security, and accountability.

An equally promising route is collaborative customisation. Sector-wide AI platforms could enable universities, healthcare institutions, and government agencies to build shared foundations that individual bodies can then tailor to their own needs.

The race toward mass customisation of AI has begun. Ethiopia should not take part merely as a consumer of customised intelligence built elsewhere. It should build its own ecosystem of customised AI applications that serve its institutions, languages, and development priorities. In the emerging digital economy, intelligence itself is becoming a customisable resource, and those who learn to shape it will lead the next wave of economic transformation.

A Duty Scheme That Punishes Its Most Compliant Blooms

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Ethiopia’s floriculture sector is one of Africa’s clearer success stories in export diversification. Beneath that achievement, though, sits an operational tension that could undermine long-term growth.

The duty incentive underpinning flower exports, anchored by the input-output coefficient (IOC), reflects a genuine commitment to export promotion while protecting fiscal revenue and nurturing young domestic industries. Yet applying rigid coefficients to the biologically variable and market-sensitive packaging needs of flower exporters produces distortions no one intended.

The IOC framework grants exporters duty-free access to essential packaging materials, including cartons, sleeves and stripping rolls, as well as price tags and carbon ribbon, provided the materials are re-exported as embodied in finished products. Experts at the Ministry of Industry set the coefficients, a regulatory tool that fixes how much packaging an exporter may draw for a given volume of flowers. Enforcement carries retroactive tax liabilities.

Any shortfall or underutilisation of materials against the set coefficient triggers full retroactive tax, as though the materials had been sold domestically. The mechanism is meant to hold exporters to the standard and to safeguard the public revenue that underpins it.

The design delivers clear advantages. For the Ethiopian Revenue & Customs Authority (ERCA), it offers mathematical auditability, since officers can verify compliance through straightforward calculations without specialised agricultural knowledge. It plugs potential leakage into the domestic market by binding duty-free imports to export volumes in a closed loop. Revenue is protected by contingent liability, and standardised rules apply to all exporters, enabling a level playing field.

For compliant exporters, the scheme eases cash flow by deferring duties, improves planning predictability, and deters unfair competition by abusers. These are a thoughtful response to a developing economy, where customs duties remain a vital revenue source and domestic packaging makers still need shelter from premature import competition. Seen in that light, the coefficient is less an arbitrary burden than a considered bargain.

The strengths fade, however, once the static coefficient meets floriculture. Packaging specifications shift quickly with international buyers, from carton dimensions and wrapping ventilation to humidity management and branding for European, Middle Eastern, and Asian markets. End-market demand rises and falls with events, festivals and holidays. Supermarkets adjust their preferences on colour, stem thickness, length and bud size, and each change alters the volume an exporter had planned to ship.

At times orders for a particular flower surge; at other moments, they dwindle.

The more serious problem is that the model treats a flower farm like a textile factory. These rules were designed for manufacturing, where a producer can predict exactly how many zippers a jacket needs or how much leather a shoe requires. There, the input-output relationship is fixed and easy to audit against leakage. Floriculture is a biological enterprise, not a mechanical one. Unlike a shoe factory, a flower farm works with living  volatile variables, weather, pests and varying stem lengths, which change the demand for packaging by the day. Imposing a one-size-fits-all manufacturing coefficient on a farm is not merely outdated. It is a structural error that penalises exporters for the natural complexity of agriculture.

Several limitations, the first and most important being forecasting uncertainty, remain issues. Coefficients demand a precision that biological and market volatility make impossible. Overestimating output leaves idle packaging stock exposed to penalties. Underestimating it starves the exporter of materials, forcing imports at full tax, borrowing, or the purchase of inferior local stock. Keeping separate stores for duty-free materials adds a heavy administrative burden, especially for smaller farms.

Proving exit is its own labour, since mapping a single low-value item, such as a rubber band, to a specific shipment is logistically demanding. Seasonal buffers become a problem without adequate and longer rollover provisions. None of this is bad faith; rather, it is the everyday pressure of moving a living product through a system built for fixed parts.

For exporters, the scheme becomes a straitjacket of exact reconciliation. Waste and damage, normal in any perishable supply chain, sometime turns into taxable events. A perverse incentive emerges to ship a suboptimal product to meet a coefficient. Most damaging, the system punishes innovation. An efficiency gain that cuts input use, say clever stem bundling that reduces sleeve consumption by 15pc, triggers a tax liability for the now over-imported material.

From the authority’s side, setting the “correct” coefficient becomes administratively charged rather than purely technical. Tight coefficients risk strangling the industry, while loose ones invite leakage. Administrative rigidity delays updates to new varieties or sustainable materials, and uniform coefficients ignore differences in business models, from premium gift packaging to standard bulk cartons. The result is a homogenised industry and an incentive for technical fraud, such as over-declaring export weights.

In essence, the coefficient trades industrial flexibility for fiscal control, locking a variable biological process into a rigid mathematical frame. That creates constant disagreement and demands an administrative agility that centralised systems rarely manage. An effective legal framework has to bend to the specifics of a sector. A sequenced shift from control- to facilitation-oriented mechanisms can preserve fiscal integrity while lifting competitiveness.

Regional experience points to a way through. Kenya’s more flexible duty-drawback systems and targeted bonded regimes, among other measures for horticultural exporters, imply that hybrid and audit-driven approaches can protect revenue while sharply cutting compliance costs.

Despite Kenya offering a lesson, critics often argue that its flower exporters receive too little government support for buying packaging. The perception grows from the ready supply of high-quality packaging made locally in Kenya. Exporters can buy it at competitive prices with a single phone call, eliminating the need for large inventories.

The arrangement carries several advantages for the state. Domestic sourcing conserves the foreign currency that imports would consume, strengthening reserves. Backing domestic manufacturers deepens the value chain and simplifies the wider business environment. It also creates jobs and income for manufacturers, small traders and workers. And exporters save on administrative costs and procurement time.

Many exporters in Ethiopia ask why their government favours foreign packaging manufacturers and suppliers entering the market rather than building a local base as Kenya has. Some exporters say regulators appear to suspect them of selling imported packaging, rubber bands, wrapping rolls, and sleeves into the local market, or of generating excessive waste. The suspicion sits oddly beside their heavy investment in raising production quality and export capacity. Such oversight undermines their commitment to the sector and breeds distrust, obscuring the jobs and growth they deliver.

Ethiopia’s duty incentive shows a mature grasp of the fact that export competitiveness needs supportive scaffolding. But the uniform application of rigid coefficients across sectors with very different characteristics risks operational failure in high-potential areas such as floriculture. By amplifying uncertainty and burden, the present system inadvertently punishes the compliant exporters it means to empower.

Digital Choices Shape our Children’s Health

Posted on by Digital Editor

From social media and online gaming to generative AI systems, digital environments are powerful determinants of people’s health. That is especially true of children and young people. Around the world, childhood is being reprogrammed by digital technologies that shape how young people learn, play, and connect.

Our task is not to celebrate or condemn technology. It is to face a simple truth. Our digital environment not only promises far-reaching benefits but also poses grave risks for children’s health and development. Our responsibility is to maximise the first while preventing the second. It is not too late to act, but it is too late for merely incremental adjustments.

Digital tools can expand opportunity by supporting learning, communication, and access to health services, especially for children in remote or crisis-affected settings. For many young people, online spaces also offer creativity, community, and a sense of belonging, particularly for those facing exclusion offline.

But these benefits are not guaranteed. They depend heavily on who has access, how technologies are designed, and whose interests they serve.

Governments are increasingly recognising that protecting children online is a public-health imperative. Australia has implemented the world’s first requirement that social media platforms prevent children under 16 from having accounts, while France is advancing legislation to prohibit access to social media for those under 15. Indonesia has banned access for children under 16, Spain has announced plans to do so, and Ireland is working with European Union (EU) partners to develop age restrictions and age-assurance systems focused on protecting under-16s.

The United Kingdom (UK), too, recently announced plans to ban social media platforms from offering services to under-16s, alongside additional safeguards such as restrictions on livestreaming and contacts from strangers. And Canada has introduced legislation to restrict access to social media for children under 16 while requiring stronger safety-by-design protections and accountability from platforms.

Together, these measures reflect a growing global consensus that digital environments require effective governance, age-appropriate design, and stronger safeguards to protect child health. The World Health Organisation (WHO) is supporting this by strengthening the research needed to develop a clearer understanding of the impact of today’s and tomorrow’s technologies, providing technical advice to countries, and promoting safe, equitable digital health environments.

Solutions are needed because digital environments are not neutral. How they are designed, governed, and monetised shapes many aspects of our lives, not least our health.

For example, repeated exposure to stereotyped, sexualised, violent, or discriminatory content shapes how children understand themselves and the world around them. Algorithms increasingly filter health information to increase attention rather than accuracy, allowing misleading claims to spread. The collection and use of personal data, particularly for profiling and targeted marketing, raise concerns about privacy, manipulation, and well-being.

Current evidence associates excessive digital exposure with problems such as anxiety, depression, poor sleep, increased aggression, and, in more severe cases, suicidality, especially among vulnerable adolescents. Digital marketing on platforms may expose people to the promotion of harmful products, such as tobacco, alcohol, and gambling platforms.

Social media, gaming, and AI use can deepen loneliness and displace offline relationships. Prolonged use contributes to sedentary behaviour and reduced sleep, which are known risk factors for noncommunicable diseases.

Online sexual exploitation and abuse are also increasing globally, alongside a sharp rise in child sexual abuse material, AI-generated abuse imagery, and deepfake sexual or bullying content. These have profound and lasting consequences for mental health, trust, and safety. Commercial practices increase all these risks. Many platforms are designed to maximise engagement without adequate protection from exposure to harmful content or features to protect children’s physical and mental health.

Reducing exposure to illegal or extreme and graphic content is essential. But children’s well-being requires more than the absence of harm. It depends on stable relationships, appropriate boundaries, physical activity, and opportunities for real-world social connection. Risks multiply when digital environments disrupt, rather than support, healthy development.

Generative AI is a major force multiplier in terms of both risks and opportunities for child well-being. Used responsibly, purpose-built AI tools may support education, accessibility, and health. But their long-term impact on children’s expectations of relationships, empathy, or self-regulation is unclear. As long as that remains true, a precautionary approach is not anti-innovation. It is pro-child. Digital balance is part of the solution.

While digital environments require regulation, transparency, age-appropriate design, stronger safety and trust features, and accountability, evidence should keep pace with technology, requiring independent, longitudinal research across income settings and regions.

Above all, we should listen to today’s youth. As active users of technology, they can help digital environments evolve responsibly. The online and offline worlds now form a single space where digital tools can support healthy development or crowd it out. Young people should bring their lived experiences to bear to help shape appropriate guardrails. Parents, caregivers, schools, and communities should also be part of this conversation.

This process demands sustained collaboration among governments, industry, civil society, and public health institutions, built on a shared commitment to maximising benefits and minimising harms. More transparency, data sharing, health-promoting design choices, and corporate support for effective safety standards, especially for minors, are essential. The WHO can play its convening role and influence in setting norms and standards.

Our children and young people are not experimental subjects, a captive market, or a commodity. Together, we can and must shape digital environments that protect and support their healthy development. The choices we make now will echo for generations.

The Quiet Breakdown of Tax Fairness in Addis Abeba

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Tax is the lifeblood of any modern state. It funds roads, schools, hospitals, security and the services people rely on every day. Most business owners understand this. They do not resist paying their fair share. What troubles them is a system that appears to reward those who ignore the rules while placing a heavier burden on those who try to comply.

When honest taxpayers begin to feel disadvantaged for following the law, the issue is no longer only about revenue collection. It becomes a question of trust, fairness and the credibility of the institutions responsible for enforcement.

Across Addis Abeba, conversations with business owners often circle back to the same subject: the tax authority. Instead of focusing on growth, jobs or improving products, many find themselves preoccupied with audits, penalties and interest charges that can quickly exceed the original tax bill.

For many entrepreneurs, the biggest business risk is no longer competition or inflation. It is the uncertainty surrounding tax administration. That uncertainty is steadily weakening confidence in a system that depends heavily on voluntary compliance.

What frustrates many is the belief that enforcement is inconsistent. Businesses that issue receipts and file returns complain about heavy penalties and accumulating interest. At the same time, others appear to operate openly without issuing receipts or facing inspections.

Many in the business community believe there are effectively two sets of rules. Whether fully accurate or not, that perception alone signals a serious erosion of confidence in the system.

I experienced this myself while shopping around Bole. When I asked for a receipt, the shopkeeper replied without hesitation that none was available. There was no concern or attempt to hide it. The seller even offered to carry items to the car so no one would notice a purchase without a receipt. The ease of the response suggested this was not an exception but routine practice.

What struck me further was that the same shops continued operating without issuing receipts long afterwards, as though the requirement simply did not apply to them.

If such practices persist in one of the busiest commercial districts of the capital, it raises uncomfortable questions. Are inspections ineffective? Is enforcement selective? Or have some businesses simply concluded that compliance is optional?

These questions become more troubling because similar accounts surface repeatedly in conversations with business owners. Many insist it is an open secret that some businesses settle matters informally with individuals rather than through official tax channels.

Whether true or not, perception carries weight. Public confidence depends not only on integrity but also on the visible appearance of integrity. Once people begin to believe corruption determines who pays taxes and who avoids scrutiny, trust in the system begins to erode.

The experiences of compliant businesses tell a different story. Some entrepreneurs report heavy penalties for minor delays in issuing receipts. Others have reportedly spent months in prison over receipt-related offences. The law must be enforced, but enforcement must also be consistent. It cannot punish some businesses for violations while others ignore the same rules openly for years. Such contradictions weaken respect for the law rather than strengthening it.

Every tax authority relies heavily on voluntary compliance because no institution can monitor every business every day. Once that willingness begins to decline, enforcement becomes more costly, more confrontational and less effective. Fairness is therefore not only a moral principle but a practical necessity for sustainable tax collection.

Concerns also extend to administrative practices inside some tax offices. One example frequently mentioned is the tax branch known as the Totot Bole District Tax Office, where staff are often described by taxpayers as dismissive and overly confrontational.

Perhaps nothing illustrates the gap between modern tax administration and current practice more clearly than a tax officer manually calculating millions of Birr in taxes, penalties and interest using a pen and stacks of blank A4 paper. To many business owners, this resembles a school mathematics exercise rather than a professional financial process. When questioned, officials sometimes explain that penalties and interest have exceeded the capacity of the computer system, leaving manual calculation as the only option.

Modern tax systems rely on standardised digital platforms that ensure consistency, transparency and auditability. Manual calculations involving large sums introduce avoidable risks of human error, inconsistency and dispute. Some business owners who review handwritten assessments report finding mistakes that significantly reduce their liabilities.

Technology alone is not a cure-all. But transparent digital systems create traceable records, reduce discretionary interpretation and allow independent verification. They protect taxpayers from errors while reinforcing confidence that assessments are based on clear rules rather than individual judgment.

No country can develop without effective tax collection. Equally, no tax authority can function without public trust. People must believe that rules apply equally, enforcement is consistent and disputes are handled fairly and professionally. Businesses should fear breaking the law, not entering a tax office.

Entrepreneurs are not asking for special treatment. They want a system where every business is held to the same standard, receipts are mandatory, penalties are calculated accurately using reliable systems, corruption is investigated and taxpayers are treated with dignity. These are basic requirements of a credible tax administration. Until they are consistently applied, many honest taxpayers will continue to wonder whether they are carrying a burden others have learned to avoid.

Children Always Know More Than Parents Think

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There is a familiar and exhausting mathematics to raising more than one child. It is the daily calculation of making sure the juice reaches the exact same level in every cup, birthday gifts cost roughly the same amount, and praise is handed out with careful precision.

For parents trying to keep the peace between a six-year-old and a five-year-old, this pursuit of perfect fairness often feels like a full-time job. Every decision is measured against the possibility of hearing the dreaded words, “That’s not fair.” Keeping the scales balanced becomes less about preference and more about survival.

Yet beneath the identical toys and evenly divided slices of cake lies a truth that many parents quietly wrestle with and many children instinctively sense. Absolute equality in parental affection rarely exists. Even if the difference is only an inch, a favourite often emerges.

Children seem to possess an extraordinary ability to detect these subtle emotional shifts. Long before they can explain what they are feeling, they notice the slight change in a parent’s tone, how quickly patience wears thin with one sibling compared to another, or the effortless warmth that greets a particular child. When a child quietly says, “You love them more than me,” the words strike far deeper than most parents expect.

For a parent who genuinely loves every child with fierce devotion, that accusation can be heartbreaking. It challenges the image of being completely fair and forces parents to confront something deeply uncomfortable. The guilt rarely comes from loving one child less. It comes from recognising that children can sometimes see the small human biases parents work so hard to conceal, even from themselves.

Understanding this requires looking beyond the idea of unconditional love and considering the psychology behind human relationships.

Developmental psychologists describe a concept known as “goodness of fit”, the degree to which a person’s temperament matches the environment and the people around them. Parents are not neutral observers. They have their own personalities, emotional triggers and ways of communicating. Naturally, some children fit more comfortably with those traits than others.

Having a favourite does not necessarily mean loving one child more than another. More often, it reflects a natural ease with a particular personality. A quiet and reflective mother may find herself relaxing more easily with an equally calm daughter, while needing far more energy to manage an energetic son. Likewise, a parent who enjoys humour may unconsciously brighten whenever their witty child walks into the room.

This is where that extra inch of favouritism quietly exists. It rarely appears in the distribution of money or material things. Instead, it reveals itself through the smallest moments of everyday life.

Children are remarkably observant. They do not simply count presents or compare the size of birthday cakes. They notice how long a parent maintains eye contact, the difference between a genuine laugh and a patient sigh, whose mistakes are excused as tiredness and whose are treated as deliberate misbehaviour.

These quiet differences create an invisible tension within families. For the child who feels just outside that circle of emotional ease, identical gifts offer little comfort. Material fairness can begin to feel like an attempt to compensate for something less tangible. The rivalry that develops is often not about who received the better toy. It is about who receives the more relaxed, affectionate and unguarded version of the same parent.

This kind of unfairness is difficult to prove because it leaves no physical evidence. When children complain, parents can point to the matching presents, equal allowances or identical privileges as proof that everyone is treated the same. Yet those visible signs of fairness do not always answer what children are actually feeling.

Recognising this does not make someone a bad parent. It simply acknowledges that parents are human. Love may be unconditional, but enjoying another person’s company is shaped by personality, circumstance and temperament. Those connections change as children grow, develop new interests and move through different stages of life. Parents change as well.

Perhaps the healthiest approach is not to insist that every emotional scale is perfectly balanced. A parent’s commitment to each child can remain equal even when human connection is not. Accepting that reality may help parents respond with greater honesty when a child says something feels unfair, instead of simply pointing to two identical cups of juice.

“The so-called republic of Somaliland.”

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Mohamed Siad Doualeh, Djibouti’s permanent representative to the United Nations and his country’s ambassador to the United States and Canada, objected to Israel’s unilateral recognition of Somaliland as a sovereign state, calling it “reckless decision” and in “defiance” of the UN Charter. Speaking before the UN Security Council last week, the Ambassador urged member states to respect Somalia’s internationally recognised borders.

106,100,000

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The value, in dollars, that Ethiopia generated from electricity exports in 2024/25. The volume of exported electricity grew by five-and-a-half-fold in one year to 2.8 million kilowatt-hours over the same period. However, the average export price fell by 68.2pc, slashing electricity’s share of exports to 3.5pc from 4.8pc. Ethiopia is exporting far more electric power, but at heavily discounted contract rates, revealing that volume and price move in opposite directions with unusual force.

Commercial Bank of Ethiopia Posts Record 80bn Br Annual Profit

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The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) posted a record gross profit of 80.09 billion Br for the fiscal year ended June 30, becoming the first bank to announce its annual results after its strongest performance to date.

The state-owned lender reported a 146pc increase in profit, generating 272 billion Br in revenue. Speaking at a press briefing, President Abie Sano said the Bank exceeded its key performance targets and outperformed the previous year.

CBE mobilised more than 700 billion Br in new deposits, raising its total deposit base to 2.4 trillion Br. It also disbursed 600 billion Br in loans during the year, with 90pc directed to private-sector borrowers, reflecting its continued shift toward private-sector lending.

The Ethiopian Statistics Service Moves to Embed AI, Big Data in New Statistics Law

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The Ethiopian Statistics Service (ESS) is pushing a legislative reform to establish a modern National Statistics System that legally integrates Big Data analytics and Artificial Intelligence. The draft law replaces the outdated proclamation based on traditional methods with a unified framework that also incorporates geospatial and other technology-driven data.

The reform clarifies institutional roles, separating regulators and implementers to ensure independence and transparency, and defines responsibilities between the Ministry of Planning and Development and the Statistics Service to eliminate overlaps and improve efficiency.

The law also expands statistical inputs to include digital infrastructure, enabling AI-driven analysis and more frequent data production for near real-time economic tracking.

Tourism Ministry, Toppan Ethiopia to Launch Virtual Tourist Centre at Bole Airport

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The Ministry of Tourism and Toppan Ethiopia have signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a virtual tourist information centre at Bole International Airport, aiming to improve digital information services for international travellers.

The facility will be located in the airport’s international departure area near passenger boarding gates, offering interactive tourism information. The project will be jointly financed by the two institutions, with Toppan Ethiopia overseeing implementation.

Officials said the virtual centre is also planned for integration into the country’s new international airport currently under development.

The agreement was signed by State Minister of Tourism Sileshi Girma and Toppan Ethiopia representative Kalkidan Arega. Following the ceremony, Sileshi also held talks with Toppan Group Vice President Antonio Tang.

Ethiopian Airlines Launches Thrice-Weekly Service to Lyon, France

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Ethiopian Airlines has launched a new thrice-weekly passenger service to Lyon, France, July 2, 2026, strengthening its European network and enhancing connectivity between Africa and Europe.

The new route connects Lyon to Ethiopian Airlines’ global network via Addis Ababa, offering passengers improved travel options and seamless connections to Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and beyond.

The Group CEO Mesfin Tasew said the Lyon route strengthens long-standing ties with France, noting the airline’s decades of service linking Paris and Marseille to Africa through Addis Ababa.

With the addition of Lyon, The Airlines now serves three destinations in France-Paris, Marseille, and Lyon, further reinforcing its presence in the French market and strengthening its footprint across Europe.